Social connections create healthier work places
- Sep 20, 2011
Over 40,000 US employees have demonstrated the power of challenges and social connections in creating healthier, more active workplaces. As part of June's third annual National Employee Wellness Month, created and sponsored by Virgin HealthMiles, teams from more than 90 US companies participated in a three-week challenge and logged more than seven billion steps – the equivalent of summiting Mount Everest 674,607 times – in their quest to top the 2011 challenge leaderboards.
For the third year running Fyda Freightliner stepped their way to the top of the Wellness Warriors division and Virginia-based global packaging leader MWV finished first in the Health Stars division thanks to its team averaging more than 10,500 steps, or approximately 5.25 miles per participant per day throughout the three-week competition.
We’re excited about our challenge win and we’re proud to support National Employee Wellness Month’s goal of promoting prevention and good health,” said Jodi Fuller, director of global benefits at MWV. “We’ve seen first-hand the value of social connections in driving healthy behaviours across our workforce.”
In recognition of these first place finishes, MWV and Fyda Freightliner have each received a $1,000 donation from Virgin HealthMiles to the charity of their choice.
Virgin HealthMiles provides technology-based employee health programs that pay people to get active. The company's Pay-for-Prevention™ approach, based on physical activity and healthy lifestyle change uses social network functionality to encourage long term participation. Members can build personal profiles, upload photos to a blog, to find commonalities with other members, create personal challenges with their friends, chat online to cheer each other on, develop informal peer groups for lunchtime walks or other activities, engage with the broader HealthMiles community by sharing healthy tips and personal success stories, and much more.
To find out more about Virgin HealthMiles visit:
Website: www.virginhealthmiles.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/VirginHealthMiles
Twitter: @HealthMiles
Helen Craig
